How Will Twitter and Billboard’s Music Partnership Impact Social TV?

Twitter is expanding its reach as a hub for TV conversation to the music industry, partnering with Billboard for a real-time music chart.

Twitter, who partnered with Nielsen in 2012 to create the Twitter Nielsen ratings, will now track the real-time music conversation with Billboard, using the music industry’s top charts list to sort through which stars and songs are popping on social.

Twitter’s music head, Bob Moczydlowsky, wants the partnership “to create the new industry standard for tracking and surfacing the conversation around music as it happens,” he said in a statement. “Now, artists who share songs and engage with their audience on Twitter will have a way to get noticed by fans, other musicians and industry decision-makers in real time,” he added.

The chart’s information will empower @Billboard and @TwitterMusic to share data, presumably when new artists and songs gain or lose traction.

It will also be interesting to see how the music partnership impacts the social TV landscape.

How and if those shows integrate the Twitter/Billboard social tracking list into their on-air production will be interesting to see, as the incentive to do so is obviously there. Weaving the chart rankings into the competitions might produce more social conversation, thus moving them up the lists. And vice versa, if they don’t.

We’ll continue to monitor the evolution of the Twitter/Billboard rankings, and its ripple effect on TV.